The Fourth of July holiday is my favorite holiday. Ok, maybe it's tied with Christmas. To me, it's like Christmas but without the snow and all the presents. It's filled with tradition and family and friends and celebrations and even more traditions . . . and to make all of that even better --
it's HOT outside! What's not to love???
The night before the 4th, our friends, the
Maxfields, invited us over for a HUGE fireworks show. The girls loved it -- seeing fireworks and being with their friends -- what could be better???
Friday morning we woke up early and headed down to downtown Tooele for the parade. My family has had a long-standing tradition of going to a parade for the Fourth of July ... and thanks to Chad, this year was no different!! It was fun to be there and brought back many years' worth of memories at the Provo parade with my family and my sweet Grandma.
When the parade was over we headed out to Mom and Dad's for even more fun! We set up our new water slide in their backyard, and much to my surprise, the big boys had more fun on it and got more use out of it than the little girls. And, by big boys, I mean Chad, my brother-in-law Casey and our friend, Jared. After being unable to launch themselves over the top of the slide using a small round trampoline, they just decided to launch each other over instead. It turned out to be one of the best ideas of the day! My mom even got in on the action!
We spent the rest of the day BBQ'ing, lighting fireworks, celebrating my birthday and the best of all - camping out in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard.... another long-standing tradition! By the way, it was the PERFECT night for camping!!!
Sunday we went back to Sandy for the big mission-call opening. . . and, as you can see from the top corner of my blog, Craig was called to serve in the West Indies Mission. We were all very excited to hear this as there is a young man from my parents' ward serving there who comes home next month AND Chad's
Uncle D'Wayne and Aunt Marla are serving there in St. Lucia and will be coming home in November! Although they are all leaving soon, it makes it nice to know something about where he is going because of them!
It was a super fun weekend and as always, allows me to reflect on my many blessings. We are so blessed to have the freedoms we have - especially our religious freedoms that allow us to worship our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. I am blessed to have wonderful family and friends, a fabulous husband and three wonderful daughters. God Bless the USA!
